School-visit to a science centre: student interaction with exhibits and the relevance of teachers’ behaviour

• Autor(a) principal: Faria, Cláudia
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Chagas, Isabel
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/9586
• topic: Science centres; Science education; Non-formal learning; Students' behaviour; Teachers' role

This study is centred on the behaviour of students and teachers during a school-visit to a Science Centre, with the purpose to answer to the following research questions: How do the students interact with the exhibits? With whom students interact during the visit? How do the teachers behave during the visit? The study was conducted in two science exhibitions, a permanent one and a temporary one. A total of 52 students and 23 teachers were observed. Data analysis showed that students used to wandering around, interacting with the exhibits for very short periods of time. However, some differences were detected between both exhibitions. In the temporary one, most students seemed to miss the interpretation of the phenomena under observation, just manipulating the exhibits, whereas in the permanent one, they tried to interpret the results of their manipulation. These results can be related to teachers’ behaviour. In fact, only in the permanent exhibition teachers remained focused in the visit for almost all the time, manipulating the exhibits while explaining it to students. It is suggested that the role assumed by the teacher during a school visit to a science centre could determine the level of students’ engagement with the visit.